RED ALERT! This interview accommodates spoilers for Star Trek: Picard season 3 episode 6, “The Bounty.” Written by Christopher Monfette and directed by Dan Liu, “The Bounty” is at the moment accessible for streaming on Paramount+.
Daniel Davis first performed the position of Hologram Professor James Moriarty within the Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2 episode “Elementary, Dear Data.” He later reprised the position in TNG season 6’s “Ship in a Bottle.” In spite of showing in solely two episodes, the character solid a protracted shadow over the franchise. And now, Davis has returned to the Franchise in Picard season 3’s “The Bounty.”
The Beat received the possibility to talk with Davis over Zoom and discover out all about returning to Trek after thirty years, to ask about memorable conference experiences, and to seek out out the place he thinks our favourite sentient hologram may presumably seem subsequent!
This interview has been edited for readability and size. Cover picture: Picard season 3 teaser trailer.
AVERY KAPLAN: How did you come to be concerned in Picard season 3?
DANIEL DAVIS: Back in November 2021, my agent known as and mentioned, “We’ve heard from Star Trek.” And I mentioned, “Yes.” And he mentioned, “Don’t you want to know what it is?” I mentioned, “It doesn’t matter. Yes, whatever it is.”
I suppose that they had been interested by involving Moriarty within the episode, however that they had begun to write down they usually thought, “Well before we write this, we better find out if we can get him to come back.” Yeah, twist my arm. Of course, you will get me! So as soon as I mentioned sure, they labored on the script.
But they saved the script from me; I by no means noticed it. They preserve issues below shut guard as a result of issues have a means of getting out. Which makes them very sad.
So all I received have been my pages that I used to be going to be taking pictures. And I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I mentioned, “This is not Moriarty, at least, not how I remember him.” Because the menacing and the hazard had handed, I believed, with “Ship in a Bottle.” That we have been over that side of him – and had gotten over it a very long time earlier than that, actually.
But I didn’t know who I used to be in “The Bounty.” And even, in Riker (Jonathan Frakes)’s phrases: this isn’t the self-aware Moriarty that we knew on the Enterprise. So I used to be confused, and there wasn’t actually anybody round to reply my questions, so, I did what actors do: I simply mentioned the phrases.
And then after I received the request from CBS to start out doing these interviews, I mentioned, “I can’t talk about it because I haven’t seen it, and I really don’t know how I fitted in or what the episode was about.” So they despatched me a screener, and I watched the episode yesterday and in the present day, and I believed, “Oh, okay. When you have the callback to Data (Brent Spiner) and Riker’s first meeting; and you have the crow; and you have Moriarty, who is a strong association with Data; and you have the tune, which is a strong association for Riker… Then Riker’s going, ‘Ah, snap finger: Data’s around here somewhere.’”
And then, the scene that I didn’t learn, however I noticed lastly, was Riker saying, “He wasn’t trying to hurt us, he was trying to guide us.” And I believed, “Ah! That’s why I was there.” But I used to be at midnight till that second, in order that was sort of unusual.
But you do what actors do: you simply form of say the phrases and hope that all of it works collectively once they reduce it – and it did! So I believe I’m imagined to be some model of Data – in no matter perform his android mind nonetheless has – to make them him. And that’s why he wasn’t precisely the Moriarty that we all know.
KAPLAN: Would you think about the Picard incarnation of Moriarty to be a manifestation of Data’s unconscious thoughts?
DAVIS: It’s potential… It might be a model of Data. I imply, he’s essentially the most schizophrenic android within the historical past of androids, with so many personalities. So it’s both Data, or Lore, or Soong, or, you realize, one other manifestation. Because when Data does obtain consciousness within the episode. They haven’t built-in but. So it’s very potential that Moriarty is a manifestation of some side of Data’s persona…
The fascinating factor, although, is it was Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) that programmed Moriarty to be as sensible as Data. I suppose that Data, Geordi and Moriarty are form of entwined within the psyche of every of them.
The solely bother was I didn’t get to see Geordi, although he was within the episode, and I didn’t get to have a scene with Patrick Stewart. And so it wasn’t actually what I used to be being known as again to do, as a result of I had a fantasy in my thoughts that I used to be being known as again to resolve the damaged promise that Picard made to me about getting me off the holodeck. But, it didn’t develop into that. So I’m nonetheless on that holodeck, someplace! Floating round with Countess Bartholomew (Stephanie Beacham).
KAPLAN: Does your private curiosity within the Sherlock Holmes canon lengthen past this position?
DAVIS: Well, I learn the books, again after I was youthful. In highschool, I believe, I learn all of the brief tales and books. And I used to be in a play, at my house theater of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco, of The Crucifer of Blood, through which I performed Doctor Watson reverse Peter Donat as Sherlock Holmes – and Moriarty was not a determine in that play.
I believe that’s what’s thrilling for the followers. You have Sherlock Holmes and you’ve got Star Trek: you’ve gotten two of the good mythologies of our tradition mixed into two, now three episodes. It’s fairly thrilling.
KAPLAN: Is the position of Hologram Moriarty one that you simply discover has typically been shut at thoughts, or was showing in Picard a return to the previous for you?
DAVIS: Well, it was each. It was a return to the previous as a result of it’s thirty years since we did “Ship in a Bottle.” It’s additionally the thirtieth anniversary of The Nanny starting, so I’ve received all these anniversaries in my head.
But it was one thing that I’ve hoped for. A return to Moriarty has been a hope of mine. When Picard first began, I imply, it was the very first thing I considered: will they convey me again? So it’s a really nostalgic interval in my life. I by no means would have anticipated that it could final so long as it has. But, what was I pondering? Of course, it’s going to final, with the followers retaining it alive.
And I’ve been to conventions, and I get Cameo requests to be Moriarty. So it’s very a lot alive. It doesn’t go away. It’s a part of me now.
KAPLAN: Do you’ve gotten any memorable experiences from conventions?
DAVIS: Oh, I’ve had so many great encounters with folks. I’ve met those who I’m nonetheless in touch with. A number of years in the past, I used to be going to do a play in New York the place I needed to have a Scottish accent. And a person got here as much as the desk along with his spouse, and he was clearly Scottish. And I mentioned, “Would you mind if go off in a little room and record our conversation together?” I occurred to have the script, and I mentioned, “Could you read these lines to me?” He really ended up being my inspiration for my accent after I did the play.
And as soon as I had a pair present up. They unrolled a canvas poster, and on either side have been pictures of me as Moriarty. And it was as tall as a wall. I imply, it rolled out for, like, 9 toes. And they wished me to signal it. And in fact, I did, after which I mentioned, “But where do you put this?” And they confirmed me an image of a barn that they’ve, and all of us hanging from the rafters on this barn. All these large, nine-foot-long posters of all of the characters that they might get to pose for them.
And I’ve now met folks from the 4 corners of the Earth. I’ve Australian followers, I’ve Chinese followers, lots of people in Europe, and a variety of Italian followers. So it’s put me in touch with the world at massive. Between this and Niles, I don’t know that there’s wherever that I might go that I wouldn’t be acknowledged. “Oh, you’re Moriarty.” “Are you Niles?” I get it on a regular basis. And it’s great! I don’t thoughts it within the least.
KAPLAN: Like many different Star Trek actors, you’ve gotten stage expertise, particularly with Shakespeare. I’m curious you probably have a favourite Shakespearian position you’ve carried out?
DAVIS: I’ve been so fortunate in my profession. I used to be classically skilled after I was younger, and the theater was all I used to be ever enthusiastic about being part of. The motion pictures have been one thing up there, that I didn’t perceive how they do this. And tv– after I was a child, and making an attempt to be an actor within the theater, folks within the theater didn’t do tv; folks within the theater didn’t do motion pictures; film stars didn’t do performs. There have been partitions up between all of the points of our occupation. And they got here down a number of years in the past.
But I’ve been in so many productions of Shakespeare – greater than thirty. And I’ve been in Hamlet six instances and performed him 4 instances. I performed Macbeth; I performed Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing; I performed King Lear a number of years in the past. I wished to play King Lear whereas I might nonetheless choose up Cordelia on the finish of the play.
And so I don’t have a bucket checklist any extra of Shakespearian roles. I’ve accomplished all those that I wished to do. When I consider all of them, Hamlet might be my favourite, as a result of I performed it at 4 completely different phases of my life. So that every time I performed it, I introduced the final 5 years of expertise and data with me into decoding the position.
And god bless him, Ian McKellen simply did Hamlet. He’s eighty-something years previous and he simply did Hamlet once more in London. So I believed, “If Ian can do it, I can do it. I’m gonna stick around and do it when I’m 82 and see how it goes.” But once you’re sufficiently old to play these elements, once you’ve had sufficient life expertise to play these sophisticated elements, you’re too previous to do them. So, seize it when you can!
KAPLAN: In addition to live-action onscreen performances, you’ve gotten additionally carried out in a number of animated exhibits. Would you think about returning as an animated model of Hologram Moriarty?
DAVIS: I really had a dialog about this with Kate Mulgrew (Vice Admiral Janeway) a couple of month in the past. We had dinner collectively in New York, and I mentioned, “Why couldn’t I?” I imply, as one of many producers on Picard mentioned: “Moriarty can pop up anywhere.” So sure, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
I believe that Janeway and Moriarty is a wedding made in animated heaven, so, we’ll see!
New episodes of Picard can be found for streaming on Paramount+ on Thursdays.
Read all of The Beat’s Star Trek protection by clicking right here!
Discussion about this post